When Prince William is marrying his long-time girlfriend Catherine Middleton on Friday, 29th April, millions of people will be watching TV. Royal Weddings have glamour; but the Royal Family in Great Britain is also an institution with a long history. The Windsor family with Queen Elizabeth II. is a national symbol - it stands for continuity and identity. The wedding of the crown prince shows that the next generation is ready. Each generation has its beliefs and values. In astrology we look at the signs of the outer planets for generational themes. Thus the notorious "generation gap" can be described - as Liz Greene demonstrated in her article for the magazine Apollon in the Nineties. We republish the part in which she portrays the different generations of the Royal Family and their links to each other.

The Centre for Psychological Astrology CPA offers all six issues of the journal "Apollon" for free. Visit www.cpalondon.com to download the PDF files.

The Royal Family: Generational Games

by Liz Greene

Powerful generational aspects may occur
not only between parent and child but between the parent and
the individual whom the child, when grown, chooses to marry. What
the family psyche needs but does not possess amongst its members,
it tends to instinctively acquire through marriage, so that its myths and complexes can
unfold and be worked through over the generations. It is therefore
important, when examining family charts, to include not only the
direct blood line, but also the spouses. For the sake of both
brevity and clarity, I am listing only the relevant chart placements
of a few specific members of the Royal Family, rather than reproducing
the entire birth charts.

There are, inevitably, links involving the
outer planets between the Queen's chart and that of her father,
King George VI; he had a conjunction of Uranus in 22º 07' Scorpio
and the Moon in 24º 51' Scorpio, and this conjunction squares
the Queen's Neptune in 22º 02' Leo. The Queen also has Saturn
in 24º 26' Scorpio, at the MC in 25º 33' Scorpio, and both conjunct
her father's natal Uranus. We may speculate about the personal
issues described by the Saturn-MC-Moon contact across the two
charts, and surmise that the emotional relationship between the
Queen and her father was chilly but indestructible, and that a
strong sense of responsibility and powerful but unspoken bonds
of duty and social obligation replaced simple affection and spontaneous
emotional exchange. But here we also have two outer planets in
square across the charts. This is more difficult to understand,
let alone summarise in a few words. Uranus in King George's chart
exactly squares Neptune in Queen Elizabeth's chart. The spirit
of progress, for those born with Uranus in Scorpio, seeks expression
through compulsive destruction and rebuilding, through the mobilisation
of survival instincts in the face of that which threatens life,
and through courage in the throes of battle. Where a battle is
not found, one will be created; in the King's case, there was
sufficient battle going on in the world outside to satisfy any
Uranus in Scorpio vision of evolution through crisis. In stark
contrast, the dream of redemption, for those born with Neptune
in Leo, is expressed through a fantasy-world where all is bright
and beautiful, and where one's own life is both an act of sacrifice
and a symbol of divine authority for others, similarly Neptune-bound,
who seek release from their own dreary lives. The Queen both shares
and embodies perfectly the mythic longings of her own generation
group. It is not surprising that she is unwilling to let go of
them.

Here, two generations collide: the older,
which lived through two world wars and made an idealogy of facing
the harsh truth and building on the ashes of what had been destroyed,
and the younger, which preferred to turn its back on the bleak
hardship of the world and pursued a fairy-tale vision of splendour
and the divine right of kings. Such a square between parent and
child, unless reinforced by personal planets, might not necessarily
erupt in personal conflict. Here there is reinforcement: the King's
Moon squares his daughter's Neptune, and his Uranus conjuncts
her Saturn. He must have seemed emotionally erratic and compulsively
depressed to her. She, in turn, must have seemed incomprehensible
to him - and perhaps to her mother as well, who also has the Moon
in Scorpio - because the Queen is the vessel for the grandiose,
chivalric dreams of a whole generation. That generation is certain
of its special spiritual role, in love with a code of honour and
excellence which, while noble and beautiful, may be too disconnected
from the trials and tribulations of ordinary life and the egalitarian
propensities of the present Uranus and Neptune transits through
Aquarius. When Neptune transited through Leo, the world longed
for glamour and magnificence, and needed shining models; this
was the era of the great Hollywood film stars. King George VI
may have found his daughter strangely arrogant and unworldly,
not because of a specific failing in her individual character,
but because something else, something pervasive and powerful and
universal, peeped through the personal realism and tenacity of
her Taurus Sun and Capricorn Ascendant.

Prince Charles

Something profoundly intelligent appears
to be at work in family patterns involving outer planet contacts.
Prince Charles was born with the Sun in 22º 25' Scorpio, conjunct
Chiron in 28º 13' Scorpio. The close conjunction between his Sun
and his grandmother's Moon reflects their emotional closeness.
The conjunction between his Sun and his mother's Saturn reflects
the great weight of expectation he feels from her, and the degree
to which it both limits and shapes his destiny. But Prince Charles
also has a powerful outer planet link with the grandfather whom
he knew only in childhood; Charles' Sun is exactly conjunct King
George's Uranus. Charles, as an individual, embodies that search
for the hidden truth which the King's Uranus generation group
pursued as a collective vision of progress. He is, in a way, the
culmination in personal terms of the strivings of his grandfather's
generation. But Charles' Sun-Chiron in Scorpio also squares the
Queen's Neptune. It is not in the least surprising that Charles
has sought to pursue his own development, intellectually, emotionally,
and sexually, in ways which must seem directly threatening to
his mother's Neptunian dreams.
Charles, in turn, must feel bewildered, let
down, and perhaps subtly manipulated by his mother, and profoundly
irritated by her insistence on clinging to an ideal which, for
him, is no longer valid in the world he perceives around him.
The Queen belongs to a generation group wedded to a glorious redemptive
vision of grandeur and nobility. Charles also has Pluto in 16º
33' Leo. This is not in close conjunction with the Queen's Neptune,
but it is a conjunction nevertheless. There is something in Charles
which he shares with his Pluto generation: a survival instinct
which depends on an inner sense of specialness and a profound
conviction that the individual's voice matters. In this respect
he instinctively feels what his mother feels, not as a romantic
ideal, but as a necessity - although the square between his Pluto
and his natal Sun suggests that he is in conflict with his own
generation group as well as with hers. He has more in common with
his grandfather than with those of his own age.

Perhaps, on some deep and inaccessible level,
Charles did not feel he had the power to stand up to that Neptune
in Leo vision of noblesse oblige. His natal Pluto pulls him into
collusion with it. So he chose (or had chosen for him, but nevertheless
accepted) a partner whose planetary pattern added enough fuel
to his own to challenge the generational dream described by his
mother's natal Neptune. Princess Diana had natal Uranus in 23º
20' Leo, conjunct the Queen's Neptune. There is a certain inevitability
in the way in which these two women polarised as the voices of
their respective generations, and in the determination with which
they perceived each other as enemies. Neptune in Leo dreams of
redemption through a heart-fuelled vision of a higher, nobler
world; Uranus in Leo perceives human progress in terms of the
individual's capacity to break down existing authority structures
to release the potential of creativity for the group. Diana's
natal Moon in 25º Aquarius and her natal Venus in 24º 23' Taurus
describe her own inner conflict with her Uranus generation group's
self-willed ideal. But when one puts together the explosive combination
of Charles' Scorpio planets and her natal T-cross, all challenging
the Queen's natal Neptune, the annus horribilis takes on an altogether
different cast. For the Queen, this marriage must have seemed
to herald the disintegration of her most cherished fantasies of
redemption, and Diana's generation group must seem like a guerilla
army determined to spoil the party and destroy the last vestiges
of royal privilege and dignity.

Prince William

Inevitably, Prince William will carry on
this generational pattern, which hints at a long, slow evolutionary
process working its way through the centuries. William's outer
planets are closely linked with personal planets in both his parents'
charts: his Neptune-Ascendant conjunction, in 25º 32' and 27º
30' Sagittarius respectively, is conjunct both his father's Mars-Jupiter
conjunction and his mother's Ascendant. It would seem that his
parents embody, on a personal level, that longing for spiritual
enlightenment and hunger for meaning which is essential to the
Neptune in Sagittarius generation's dream of redemption. The "New
Age" activities of both Charles and Diana will undoubtedly sit
well with their son's generation group. But William also has Venus
and Chiron exactly conjunct in 25º Taurus, and his personal values,
developing partly through hurt and sorrow, are not in accord with
either his grandmother's collective romantic vision, his mother's
ferocious collective self-expressiveness, or his father's compulsive
collective survival instinct. William's Neptune in Sagittarius
is trine the Queen's Neptune in Leo, and both share the fire signs'
dream of a better, grander, nobler world. But for William, that
world can be found only through a moral and spiritual quest, and
not through an affirmation of personal specialness.

In the old days, astrologers used to talk
about the outer planets as "dumb notes" in a birth chart; they
were "unimportant" and not considered especially relevant to the
individual's life. Now we know better, and those astrologers who
study collective trends know how very powerful is the voice of
the collective psyche in terms of individual destiny. When the
outer planets are powerfully linked with personal planets in the
birth chart, the individual is, more than others of his or her
generation, a mouthpiece for the collective. Such a person needs
to be able to create appropriate vehicles for that collective
vision, while still maintaining individual integrity and an ego
strong enough to process collective energies through personal
values, aptitudes, and experience. The child whose ego cannot
contain these things may be swept along by the forces which reflect
the zeitgeist under which he or she was born, sometimes achieving
great creative expression and sometimes disintegrating into psychosis
- or both. The child who fights against his or her generation
group, and attempts to suppress the larger entity to which he
or she belongs, may suffer equally. A sense of profound isolation
may be one by-product. Another may be powerful internal and external
eruptions which leave the individual feeling utterly powerless
in the face of the forces of change. Links between parent and
child involving the outer planets suggest that each can help the
other to recognise and develop the gifts and perceptions of their
different generational groups, perhaps contributing more positively
to an evolutionary process in which both are required, willingly
or unwillingly, to participate.

Sadly, such links often result in a furious
battle which may be blamed on personal factors. Perhaps it was
highly inappropriate for the Queen to blame Diana personally for
her rebellion against the royal status quo; Diana was a mouthpiece
for her generation, and those born with Uranus in Leo are not
lightly predisposed to believe in Neptunian dreams. Leonine creative
vision may be common to both, but these two outer planets are
opposite in meaning and reflect, respectively, intellectual and
emotional perceptions of the same dimension of life. Neptune seeks
fusion with a higher unity through idealisation and self-sacrifice;
Uranus seeks progress through the creation of new idealogies.
If a parent wishes to be helpful to a child when such contacts
exist between the two charts, it may be important to recognise
not only the child's individuality, but also what that child stands
for as the representative of an entire generation. The wise parent
will encourage the child to find appropriate vehicles through
which collective needs and dreams may be individually expressed,
rather than reacting blindly to what is perceived as a threat,
or identifying blindly with what is perceived as the apotheosis
of one's own generational dreams. A good example of the latter
dynamic is the link between Joseph P. Kennedy's conjunction of
Neptune and Pluto in Gemini and his son's natal Sun in Gemini.
John F. Kennedy (See also "The Oracle and the Family Curse", for an analysis of the Kennedy family charts) was perceived by his father as the living incarnation of Papa Joe's generational vision of redemption and continuity through education, social mobility, and political power. The result was, inevitably, that John F. Kennedy never had a chance
to become John F. Kennedy, except in the context of his father's
ambitions - not personal ambitions, but those of an entire generation.

A great deal of further research is needed
to comprehensively map out these great collective daimones which
flow down through the generations, described by outer planet links
between family charts. And the natal picture is not the end of
the story. Generation significators not only link up across the
natal charts of parents and children; they are also mobilised
at specific times by individual outer planet transits, and during
those periods when the conjoined cycles of two or three outer
planets reach a critical juncture. For example, during the period
when Prince Charles and Princess Diana experienced the breakdown
of their marriage, Pluto was transiting through Scorpio, activating
not only their personal planets, but also the Queen's natal Neptune.
For the Queen's entire generation group, this was a time of crisis
and disillusionment. The "dirt-digging" propensities of Pluto
in Scorpio, flushing out all those spheres where emotional dishonesty
threatens survival, ensured that those born under the redemptive
vision of Neptune in Leo were forced to face, at last, the impossible
gap between their vision and the reality of human sexual and emotional
nature.

As individuals, we cannot control or dam
up such great collective movements. We participate whether we
wish to or not. But we can choose to participate creatively or
destructively. We can feel ourselves to be unwilling victims of
malevolent external forces. We can puff ourselves up with collective
dreams and convince ourselves that we are the embodiment of divinely
inspired change. Or we can engage in the humbler, harder task
of refining our own character and talents to act as mediators,
contributing as best we can to the positive unfoldment of what
is essentially a greater human necessity. We need to have enough
consciousness of where our own individual personalities merge
into something larger, in order to construct something valid and
life-enhancing out of our generational needs and compulsions.
We also need to offer our children sufficient wisdom and containment
to honour their very different generational dreams. As astrologers,
we may relate best to those clients whose outer planets are in
harmony with our own; if we have Pluto in Leo, we may relate better
to those young people with Pluto in Libra than to those with Pluto
in Virgo, and we may find it very hard to sympathise with the
energies of the Pluto in Scorpio group, which we may experience
as quite threatening. Neptune in Libra relates better to Neptune
in Sagittarius than to Neptune in Scorpio, and Neptune in Scorpio
relates better to Neptune in Capricorn than to Neptune in Sagittarius.
Whether we are parents or astrologers - or both - the generation
gap will continue to exist, not because age and youth are in inevitable
discord, but because the great collective cycles require a different
vision at a different time. While we may never personally share
the visions of other generation groups, we can at least recognise
that they are an essential part of a much greater unfoldment of
life.

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